by Robert Adams
After sending his archers to take up positions on the top of that cliff against which the battered defenders were ranged, Bili led his squadron of heavy horse down a steep, shaly, treacherous slope in a charge that crashed squarely into the right flank and rear of the smelly primitives. A second charge, from the other side, this one reinforced with some hundreds of mounted Moon Maidens and Ahrmehnee, along with the now-shaftless archers, utterly broke the mob of barbarians and sent them fleeing as fast as their ponies could bear them down the length of the plateau with Bili’s now heterogeneous command in hot and bloody pursuit.
Then, as the exhausted men and women and cats and horses were wending a weary way back from the western edge of the plateau over which the surviving Muhkohee had escaped the gory and vengeful swords, sabers, spears and axes, Bili’s extrasensory abilities alerted him to fast-encroaching danger in time for him to see the squadron mounted and off the southern end of the Tongue of Soormehlyuhn scant minutes before a tremendous earthquake shook it into rubble.
The young Thoheeks of Morguhu had endeavored to keep his command together despite the horror and tenor of the natural catastrophes. But in the zigzagging race to escape the hot, crackling, intensely smoky forest fires engendered by a fall of hot ashes and superheated boulders from the skies, the group had become sundered into two or more smaller groups. When, at long last, they had left the fires behind them, Bili had found himself in alien and most likely hostile territory in company with a mixed contingent of Ahrmehnee, Freefighters, Moon Maidens and a sprinkling of fellow nobles of the Confederation, both Kindred and Ehleenee. A day later, two of the prairiecats and a trio of Ahrmehnee ponies had joined them, but that had been all, nor could he seem to make farspeak contact with any of his missing friends or relatives.
Early in the first morning of their encampment in the tiny vale they had found in the smoky dusk of the previous evening, the Silver Lady, the goddess reverenced by Ahrmehnee and Moon Maidens alike, had communicated with the leader of the Moon Maidens and given the order that — since their hold was now destroyed and all their folk dead — they were to give over many of the ways of the hold and choose and mate with the men with whom chance had thrown them. The brahbehrnuh, or leader, Rahksahnah, had chosen Thoheeks Bili.
But hardly had the two young warriors shared the first sweet embrace of their mating than Bili was warned telepathically by a prairiecat that a mixed force of horsemen and infantry was fast approaching the mouth of the vale. It was a near thing, true, but no battle took place there, and, after some discussion on various matters, Prince Byruhn had persuaded Bili to bring his force from the dangerously exposed position he occupied in the vale and partake of the safety and hospitality of one of the New Kuhmbuhluhn “safe glens,” Sandee’s Cot.
During the very first meeting between Prince Byruhn and Bili, both of them sitting their big warhorses in a mutually arranged and sworn Sword Cult Truce, Pah-Elmuh, the leader of those huge, hairy hominids called Kleesahks, had knelt and hailed Bili as “the Champion of the Last Battle.” Some year or more later, Bili still did not fully comprehend the full import of this title, but he had become accustomed to the reverence with which both he and Rahksahnah were treated by the many Kleesahks and had likewise become accustomed to being addressed as Lord Champion by them.
Bili and his followers had originally only intended to bide at Sandee’s Cot long enough for the forest fires to burn themselves out, then to ride back into the Ahrmehnee stahn, but Prince Byruhn had, by most devious means, prevailed upon him and them to stay in New Kuhmbuhluhn at least long enough to help him rid his country of the despicable race of Ganiks, outlaw elements of which the lowlanders knew as the Muhkohee.
This Bili and his hard-bitten little band had done with the aid of Count Sandee and a few of his men and some score of the huge Kleesahks. They were wintering in Sandee’s Cot, awaiting the spring thaw to make their way back east, when, once again, Prince Byruhn had come to call and, being this time hard pressed by the Skohshuns in the northwest, had once again set about the same devious mode of “persuading” the lowlanders to ride back to New Kuhmbuhluhn and throw their weight and warlike skill against this new foe of the kingdom.
And so they all had ridden north with the spring, and Bili had pledged his and their services to King Mahrtuhn and the House of New Kuhmbuhluhn until the Skohshuns were defeated. Now King Mahrtuhn and his designated heir, his grandson, Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht, lay dead in the rock-carven crypt of the dynasty, deep within King’s Rest Mountain. Poor Prince Byruhn — now King Byruhn, much against his desires and keenly aware of a hoary prophecy that Byruhn would be the name of the very last king of his dynasty — now lay comatose in his old suite in the palace, struck down through accident on the walls during the first attempted storming of them by the Skohshuns.
The prince was not and had never been a mindspeaker, but in order to protect his thoughts from those who did happen to own that gift, the Kleesahks had long ago taught him how to erect and maintain a powerful mindshield. Apparently this shield had been raised into place at the time the catapult missile, a large, heavy, round boulder, had rolled off the rear of an engine platform and fallen to strike the prince and crush his thick helmet. Now, with that impenetrable mindshield firmly locked into its accustomed position, Pah-Elmuh could not reach the stricken monarch’s mind in order to instruct it how to begin repairing the brain’s internal damages.
And so Prince Byruhn lay upon the great bed in his suite, administered thin broths and other liquids through a flexible tube that Pah-Elmuh had somehow contrived to get down his throat into his stomach. Byruhn could not swallow and would soon have died without that tube, but as it was, the flesh seemed to be wasting away from his big-boned frame day by day.
Three days after the tragic accident, those members of the royal council who had survived the costly battle had come to Bili, who, based upon one of King Byruhn’s orders, was already commanding the garrison of the city, and implored him to serve as royal regent during the new kings recovery and convalescence. Promising them an answer in two days. Bili had discussed the weighty matter with Rahksahnah, the lieutenants of his condotta, those New Kuhmbuhluhners he had come to respect, Pal-Elmuh the Kleesahk, even, finally, with the prairiecat Whitetip; then he had summoned the councilors and informed them that only if both they and the commoners’ council agreed to his tenure and his terms would he accept the regency. They had, all of them, of all stations.
Bili of Morguhn had had a part in sieges before, both in the defensive and the offensive roles, and he often thought that if defend a city he had to do, this city and citadel of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk were ideally suited and situated to make its commander’s task relatively safe easy and comfortable, while at the same time causing a maximum of discomfort, peril and frustration to the besieging forces.
Despite the vast hoards of foodstuffs for man and for beasts which he had been made aware were stored in the side of the mountain against and into which the city and the citadel were built, Bili had assembled and addressed the native Kuhmbuhluhn landholders — those still alive and active after the battle against the Skohshun pike lines — and told them all to return quickly to their lands. They were, one and all, to strip those lands of all provisions that could be easily carted or herded to the city, butchering or burning or otherwise rendering unusable everything that must perforce be left behind to the tender mercies of the encroaching Skohshuns.
He did not tell them to bury their valuables; he knew that they would do that anyway. Nor did he tell them not to bring their noncombatant dependents behind the walls of New Kuhnibuhluhnburk. He simply pointed out that no matter how well supplied, close-crowded cities under siege were most prone to breed terrible plagues against which there existed little if any protection. Most of the landholders ended by sending their families, servants, some of their retainers and large portions of their herds and flocks up into the surrounding mountains — safe and familiar to them, foreign and potentially dangerous to the Skohshuns.<
br />
When the defeated army, bearing their dead royalty and their many wounded, had passed through the gates of the burk, not a one but was certain that the Skohshuns would be under the walls within bare days; but their unanimous assessment had been off by the better part of a month, and by the time the enemy column finally appeared on the plain below the city, it had only been necessary to bring in the herds and flocks then at graze on the nearer reaches of that plain, man the barbican and slam shut the ponderous gates. All else was in complete readiness for a protracted siege.
Two months, or the best part of that amount of time, had now gone by since the arrival of the Skohshuns on the plain, and in the four major assaults essayed against the burk, not a single one of the alien soldiers had gotten farther than the stout, stone-built barbican or the verge of the gorge behind it, The attackers had managed to get all of their wounded back down the mountain each time but they had left a plentitude of dead bodies to constantly inspire the garrison and the inhabitants of New Kuhmbuhluhuburk. Morale within the beleaguered city could not have been higher, and Duke Bili and his retinue were roundly cheered by populace and soldiers alike each time they appeared on the walls.
But, although none then knew, it was not to last.
* * *
The first good look that Brigadier Sir Ahrthur Maklarin got at the fortress-city of New Kuhmbuhlubnburk had sent his spirit nosediving into the lowest reaches of his boots. He had occasionally heard rumors and fables of impregnable cities; now, to his horror, he beheld one that surely deserved that appellation.
It was abundantly clear even from a distance that there would be no undermining of those walls of massy stone, not unless one had the fantastic ability to undermine the very mountain itself, for that city was not just built on but built into the very fabric of the mountain.
He also realized that to think of surrounding and interdicting New Kuhmbuhluhnburk was pointless in the extreme, for ten times his available forte could not have adequately manned the works and trenches it would have taken to completely circumscribe the sprawling base of the mountain, and that was precisely what it would take to seal off the approaches to that city with any certainty of success in the undertaking. Therefore, he chose what appeared to be a good, level site and set his regiments to the hard work of digging a deep, broad ditch and packing up the residual earth firmly so that palisade stakes could be there implanted when enough trees from the surrounding mountain slopes had been felled and trimmed and snaked back to erect that wooden wall which would defend his encampment.
Stones — and there were all too many in the soil of the plain — were graded by size and laid aside as ammunition for the engines, whenever the engineers got around to assembling the things. Within the perimeter of the huge camp the first things to be set up were the kitchens. Latrine and refuse pits quickly followed, then horse lines, wagon parks and supply depot. Only then were the disciplined, well-organized troops allowed to begin pitching the camp proper.
The herald sent to demand the surrender of the burk came back with the news that both King Mahrtuhn and his heir, Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht, had fallen in the battle, and that the present king of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk was one King Byruhn. The herald reported that he had been well received and most lavishly entertained by one Duke Bili of Morguhn, who seemed to be the overall commander of the burk garrison, as well as by a number of nobles and officers.
The brigadier had scanned the written message brought back by the herald, cursed feelingly, then dropped the sheet and allowed it to roll itself back up. “This King Byruhn is blunt enough, I’ll say, blunt to the point of insult.” Then the old man addressed the herald, saying, “Well, man, you’ve now been closer to that pile of rock than any of the rest of us to date. Can you give us a clearer picture of just what types and degrees of fortifications we’re up against than you could after your last visit, last year?”
The herald, a retired officer of about the brigadier’s own age, shifted on his stool, using both hands to move his stiff leg into a more comfortable position, then replied, “Sir Ahrthur, yon sits an exceptionally tough-shelled nut, and it may well be that we simply lack the strength of jaws and teeth to ever crack it. To begin, the only road up to the place switches back twice in the ascent, which bodes ill, you can imagine, for attacking troops thus longer exposed to the arrows, slingstones, pitchpots and whatnot sure to be raining from the walls onto them. Also, the roadbed is of timber corduroy, and, despite the sand and dust coating them, I could ascertain that the timbers are well soaked with inflammable substances.”
One of the colonels remarked depreciatingly, “Very clever, but what do they do after they have once burned the road, eh?”
The brigadier nodded. “Yes, Colonel Potter, that particular trap can be sprung but the once . . . but how would you like to be on it when they chose to fire that roadway?”
Then, “Go on, Sir Djahn. What of the outer works and the walls themselves?”
Grimacing with pain, the herald shifted his stiff leg to yet another position, then shook his white-haired head and replied, “Worse than the road, if possible, for us, Sir Ahrthur. The barbican, though it looks to be hard against the gates from here, on the plain, actually is separated from walls and gates by a deep, narrow, but sheer-sided crevasse that runs along most of the front face of the burk walls. What the barbican is actually there to guard is the bridge over that crevasse, although it is really not necessary, for the span is fitted with great iron hooks at its outward end which can only be for the fastening of cables or chains to raise it.”
“This crevasse,” demanded the brigadier, “you say it’s narrow? Well, how deep is it would you estimate, Sir Djahn?”
“The bottom is uneven, Sir Ahrthur, but I’d say that seventy feet deep would be a good average depth. And it seems to serve as a seasonal streambed, as well — there are waterinarks on the sides well up them, too.
“Now to those city walls I can scarce credit the witness of my very own senses, Sir Ahrthur; had I not seen them close on, touched them, walked upon them, I would not believe that such walls could be built by mortal man. But they are there.
“The lower half to two-thirds of those walls are not walls at all, not laid masonry walls rather are they the living stone of the mountain itself, left in place when the flattened-bowl shape of the city area was carved out of what once must have been a shelf on the flank of the mountain. In places, this remnant is thirty or more feet in thickness at ground level, with one- and two-story habitations carved out of its inner face.
“The upper reaches of the walls, the battlemented portions of them, are composed of worked slabs so huge as to cause one to wonder at how they ever were quarried, transported or laid into place, much less so beautifully squared, smoothed and fitted as to not need mortar or cramps to hold them in their order. The masonry battlemented wall varies from fifteen to about twenty-five feet in height and is a good twenty feet in width across the top.
“As regards towers, there are only those you can see from here — a pair flanking the gates and one at each corner, but not much higher than the burk walls, themselves, and really only raised platforms for stone-throwing engines.”
The brigadier raised his bushy eyebrows and smoothed one of his drooping mustaches with a thumbnail. “What of that high tower that seems to go near to the summit of the mountain, Sir Djahn?”
“It’s only a half-tower, Sir Ahrthur, built directly into the flank of the mountain itself. It was obviously built as a keep, and I would hate to have to attack a garrison in it, but the New Kuhmbuhluhners just now are using it and the vast labyrinth of passages and chambers bored into the bulk of the mountain for magazines and stables. The crypt of their kings is in that mountain, too, which is why it is called King’s Rest Mountain. That crypt is most impressive, but even more impressive is a huge, deep, spring-fed subterranean lake within that mountain that supplies all of the water needs of the city and garrison.”
“And this garrison, Sir Djahn?” inquired Si
r Djaimz, the senior colonel, “What are your impressions of it, as regards quantities and qualities of troops, leadership and morale?”
“The titular leader and commander is, of course, King Byruhn, Sir Djaimz. He is a huge man who towers a good foot above average height and weighs I would say, well in excess of twenty stone, though he is a veteran warrior and owns precious little if any fat on that big-boned frame. However, he seems preoccupied with some weighty matter and devotes little time to the garrison, leaving that to his senior captain, one Duke Bili of Morguhn, a lowlander mercenary from the east.”
Colonel Potter smirked. “Mercenary, hey? How much do you think he’d cost us to say . . . leave a gate open one dark night?”
Sir Djahn shmgged. “I got to know him rather well, colonel, and I doubt me he could be bought for any price, not with his word already pledged to King Byruhn.”
Potter laughed. “Come, come, Sir Djahn every mercenary has a price; for that matter, every man has a price.”
The herald eyed his questioner coldly and asked, “Is it so, colonel? Then what, pray tell, is your own price?”
“Now damn your eyes, Sir Djahn!” Potter’s chair crashed over as he came to his feet, his hand seeking the hilt of the sword he was not wearing just then, his features beet-red and working in rage.
The brigadier’s broad, callused palm slapped the table explosively, “Damn your eyes, Colonel Potter! Sit down and hold your tongue. Sit down, sirrah!”
Sulkily, Potter righted his chair and resumed his seat, staring malevolently from beneath his brows at Sir Djahn, but remaining silent, as ordered.
The brigadier nodded. “Now, let us continue the debriefing, gentlemen, if you so please.” He looked to Senior Colonel Sir Djaimz.
